‘Hello,’ she called.
Kitty straightened up, and sure enough there was an expression of grim determination on her face, as well as a good deal of dust. A large basket of thwarted shoots wilting in the sun in the middle of the terrace testified to her accomplishments.
‘I didn’t know you were a gardener,’ Flora said.
‘I’m not,’ Kitty said. ‘I haven’t any idea if I’ve pulled up the right things. I just felt like . . .’
‘It’s very therapeutic, isn’t it?’ said Flora. ‘I’ve got rather behind with the weeding.’
‘I’m afraid you’re not meant to water plants in the middle of the day, though,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ve just remembered. It makes their pores open up, and then the sun fries them.’
Flora looked around at the shrubs, sturdily luxuriant despite her inexpert management. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘So much for my nurturing instincts, eh? But it’s not the middle of the day. It’s almost seven o’clock.’
Kitty stared at her for a moment.
‘Shall I make some tea?’ Flora said. ‘Or pour you a glass of wine? You look as though you could do with a rest.’
‘There’s still lots to do,’ Kitty said. ‘There’s –’
‘Come on,’ said Flora. ‘Come in and have a drink.’
Lou, Flora supposed, was still asleep upstairs, but where was . . .? While she was wondering how to raise this question, Kitty answered it for her.
‘Daniel’s gone,’ she said, as she ran her hands under the kitchen tap. Her voice didn’t sound as nonchalant as she’d clearly hoped it would. She shook her hands violently and water flew around the room. ‘He’s going home.’
Flora hesitated. ‘Not because of me, I hope?’
‘No. Because of me. Because we – because he – because it’s no good, any of it.’
Flora watched her face flatten, the tell-tale tension in her cheeks that presaged tears. She put her arms around Kitty, and felt her chest heave and sink again.
‘Oh, my darling,’ she said.
‘I can’t even –’ Kitty began, her voice muffled by Flora’s blouse. ‘We went to see that picture in the church that you – after Martin, and everything – but on the way we were talking, and suddenly . . .’
Flora lifted a hand to Kitty’s hair: such a tender gesture always, smoothing her turbulent curls.
‘The thing is,’ Kitty said. ‘I can’t compose when I’m with him, and that’s no good, is it? I can’t give that up.’
‘No.’
‘And . . .’ Kitty sniffed fiercely. ‘Even if Daniel’s not – a blood relation, you know, I grew up with Henry as my father, and it feels . . .’ She stopped. ‘I wonder if that’s what – if I recognised Henry in him, and that’s why . . .’
Flora said nothing. Who knew, she thought. She could certainly testify to Henry’s attractions – she would be the chief witness, wouldn’t she, to their power? If Daniel had inherited some of that charisma, that chutzpah, perhaps it wasn’t so much Kitty seeing her father in him as . . .
‘And I grew up with Henry as my example of a husband, too,’ Kitty said, with a final dash of bravado. ‘How could I marry his son?’
She kept her face buried in Flora’s neck, as though she didn’t dare to look at her. Poor Daniel, Flora thought, unacknowledged by his father and left motherless by a car crash. But poor Kitty, too; poor, poor Kitty, so entangled in the consequences of her father’s behaviour. At least her upbringing had given Kitty realistic expectations, though. And a sense of caution: that was something her mother had taken sixty years to learn. But . . .
‘Do you love him?’ she asked, eventually.
She could feel Kitty’s heart knocking against her chest; both their hearts beating together.
‘I don’t know. I’d know, wouldn’t I, if I did?’ Kitty made a little sound of sorrow and confusion. ‘I hated him going, but . . . What’s the matter with me that I don’t know what I feel?’
‘There’s nothing the matter with you,’ Flora said. ‘Goodness, Kitty, none of us . . .’ She stopped. She wanted badly to tell Kitty about Martin now, to frame that story in her mind by speaking it aloud, but this felt like the wrong moment, the wrong context. Even so, she found herself saying, ‘I had a similar experience this afternoon.’
She hadn’t expected Kitty to take any notice, but she lifted her head.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just – an unexpected encounter.’
‘With who?’ Kitty asked.
Her own suffering seemed to have been nudged aside for a moment: how resilient the young were, Flora thought. She felt a little shy, now the story had been built up like this.
‘With Martin,’ she said.
‘Martin Carver?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did you . . .?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Flora.
‘But why not?’ Kitty’s face was eager now, despite the streaking of tears. Flora was touched, but also a little appalled. ‘Maybe not – in haste, if you feel the widow’s weeds . . . But think about being able to stay here whenever you wanted! Can’t he cook, and everything?’
‘I don’t need a man to do my cooking,’ said Flora, more tartly than she intended – the reference to widow’s weeds had struck a tender spot – but Kitty laughed, and Flora was glad. She saw them suddenly as two of a kind, she and her daughter: two women standing their ground. She would have liked to say this to Kitty, but she was afraid it would sound contrived. While she hesitated, there was a noise on the stairs and Lou appeared, drowsy with sleep.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Is it really seven o’clock?’
‘It is.’ Flora smiled. In her crumpled T-shirt Lou looked about fourteen, despite the protuberance of her belly. ‘Do you feel better? You must have slept a long time.’
‘I feel a bit odd.’
‘Kitty and I were debating whether to have tea or wine,’ Flora said. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ Lou put a hand on Kitty’s shoulder as she passed, then stopped. ‘What have you been doing?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Daniel?’
‘We’ve been having a bit of an Oprah moment,’ Kitty said.
‘Opera or Oprah?’ asked Lou.
‘Either, actually,’ Kitty said.
‘That sounds more like wine than tea,’ Lou said. ‘Maybe I could allow myself half a glass. Is there any in the fridge?’
It occurred to Flora, as she opened a bottle of Vouvray, that this was the first time the three of them had been alone together since Lou and Kitty had arrived in France: that all these men had done nothing but complicate things, these last few weeks. How nice it would be, now, to whisk her girls away to some pleasant little restaurant for supper, to escape Daniel and Martin and anyone else who might arrive on the doorstep. But that, perhaps, would be problematic; too strong a statement. Well then, hers not to wish for more, but to savour the moment.
62
As they stood in the kitchen holding a glass of wine apiece, Lou had the sudden feeling that she and Flora and Kitty were part of a carefully stage-managed set piece. The Joneses often behaved self-consciously when they were together, as if playing parts that didn’t come entirely naturally, but this was different. It felt as though they’d just realised they were approaching the final curtain of the drama they’d been part of this last week, and it wasn’t ending quite as they’d anticipated. She imagined them following the audience back outside into the cool light of day with a slight sense of anticlimax, and she wished that it could be otherwise: that Flora, especially, could exit through a different door, into a different kind of life. That, surely, was what she’d hoped for from the summer?
‘So,’ she said, ‘what’s been happening?’
‘I’ve been falling out with Daniel,’ Kitty said, with a quavering attempt at insouciance, ‘and Mum has been rejecting Prince Charming.’
‘Good Heavens.’ Perhaps she’d been w
rong, then, to imagine an anticlimax? ‘Tell me more.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Flora, ‘at least not on my side.’
‘Martin Carver has been holding a candle,’ Kitty said, ‘but Mum has snuffed it out.’
‘I see.’ Lou looked at her mother curiously. Her cheeks were flushed, but a sharp glint in her eyes warned off further questions. ‘What about you, Kitty?’ Lou asked instead. ‘Trouble in Paradise?’ But she could see at once that this levity was ill-judged. ‘Oh, darling Kits, I’m sorry.’
‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘It’s my own fault. Or at least – I don’t know. I think – he wants too much of me. He wants to be Peter Pears to my Benjamin Britten.’
That sounded rather sweet, Lou thought, rather a generous notion, even if . . . But it was more complicated than that, of course. She looked at her mother and her sister: every one of them in a muddle, she thought. She certainly hadn’t worked out yet how Alice’s letter left her, and even her own feelings seemed less clear than they had been. Not because she minded about the abortion, or blamed Alice for not telling her; not for any reason she could identify. It felt as though she’d lost her grip on real life, Lou thought. No wonder she could imagine an invisible director calling the shots, having no truck with the actors’ hopes and desires.
‘What a bunch we are,’ she said. ‘Not a happy ending between us.’
‘You’ll have one,’ said Kitty.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Of course you will. Alice will come back and everything will be fine.’
It certainly wouldn’t be that easy, Lou thought. But perhaps . . . She took a sip of wine, the first she’d drunk for a couple of months, and felt the savour of it fill her senses for a moment: a forgotten pleasure, and with it a sudden release.
Perhaps at least she was beginning to understand things a little better, she thought. She could see now that neither the romantic ideal nor the clumsy chain of deceit was the whole story – and that neither simple adoration nor a dispassionate appraisal of cause and impediment would suffice, either. The truth about Alice – about love – was more elusive. Seeking it out among the murk of daily life might be an occupation to last a lifetime. Like a pig snuffing out truffles, Lou thought, remembering an article from one of the guide books she’d perused this week, and she laughed suddenly.
‘Maybe,’ she said.
‘A nunnery might be the best place for me,’ said Kitty. ‘I could compose to my heart’s content in a silent order.’
‘Not much scope for performance, though,’ said Lou. ‘Nor for various other things you might miss.’
She caught her mother’s eye then, and something in Flora’s expression made her check herself. Time together à trois was too precious to be wasted in banter. They had always been good at saying nothing of consequence: the occasions when they’d managed more than that were rare.
‘Shall I do something about supper?’ Kitty said, as though she too felt the conversation had taken a wrong turning.
‘We can all help,’ said Lou, but Kitty shook her head.
‘You go outside and I’ll bring it to you. I’ll just throw some things on a tray.’
‘There’s some salad in the fridge,’ Flora said. ‘And lots of bread.’ She looked a little doubtfully at Kitty. ‘We don’t need much, do we?’
63
Left alone in the kitchen, Kitty soon discovered that there wasn’t very much at all that could be thrown together for supper. Some things didn’t change, she thought. Even here in France, with a shop ten minutes away that sold foie gras and any amount of wonderful cheese, they couldn’t manage the knack of filling the fridge. But she wasn’t sorry to have an excuse to linger for a few minutes. They might be on the brink of the kind of conversation she couldn’t remember them ever having before, she and Flora and Lou. Her heart bumped as she thought about it; about truth and dare and consequences.
So it was good to have a little time to gather herself, and to let the last echoes of the scene with Daniel die away. She would gladly have gone on weeding for several more hours, working out her feelings to the plangent accompaniment of the woodwind all those Mediterranean shrubs seemed to call up: oboes for the eucalyptus, flutes for the lavender, a bassoon for the juniper bush with its boot-leather berries. A wind trio, she thought, to play grave affettuoso to soothe her guilt and confusion, vivace con brio to boost her courage, dolce semplice to restore her peace of mind.
But now she had the marcato of the kitchen knife and the dolente of the bare cupboards to give shape to her thoughts. She took her time over washing lettuce and chopping tomatoes, and she found some olive oil and vinegar and a scraping of mustard left in a jar to make a dressing with. She sliced yesterday’s bread and toasted it under the grill, then found a tin of sardines that she arranged on a plate – and right at the back of a cupboard a small jar of tapenade, dark and pungent. That would do, she thought. That could almost be made to look like an elegantly casual al fresco lunch concocted by Henry’s heroine, Elizabeth David. As she stacked food and plates and cutlery on a tray, she remembered the meals Henry had conjured in unpromising circumstances: his cold collations and surprise stews, or baked beans on toast with a twist. She had a vague memory of being in the kitchen with Flora too, once upon a time, but she couldn’t think when that could have been. A casserole provokingly full of lumps of flour, she remembered.
On the threshold Kitty halted for a moment, dazzled briefly by the scene. A drift of cloud was strung across the sky, fringed with the coral and carnation of approaching dusk, and below it the garden basked in a sweet wash of tremolo strings. Flora and Lou sat in the middle of the lawn, their low chatter and the chink of their wine glasses merging with the cicadas and the trickle of the fountain. There was an evening smell of warm earth, and of leaves and blossom yielding up the day’s scent. It felt, Kitty thought, like a moment complete unto itself; a memory perfectly formed in an instant.
Walking across the grass she felt briefly like a trespasser, and as she set the tray down on the stone table the sardines and the French toast seemed de trop, in her eyes, but Lou’s eyes widened.
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘How did you rustle up all this?’
‘It’s not much,’ said Kitty. She sat down opposite her mother. If there had been a conversation, it died away now. They were both looking at her, all three of them looking at each other.
‘I feel as though I ought to make a speech,’ said Flora. ‘This feels like a special occasion.’
‘It is,’ said Lou. ‘Just the three of us.’
Flora sighed – not a sorrowful sigh, Kitty thought, although there was suddenly a rather serious look on her mother’s face. Perhaps this was the moment for the debrief, she thought; for them to talk about Henry and Daniel and Landon. But when her mother spoke she wasn’t surprised that all that was left aside. Just the three of them, she thought. That was how it should be. For now, that was what mattered.
‘It’s been lovely to have you both here,’ Flora said. ‘It hasn’t exactly been a carefree holiday, I know, but I hope it’s been good for you. In some ways, at least.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ Kitty said. ‘Martin hasn’t come to claim his house back, has he?’
‘No,’ said Flora. ‘But – I’m going to go home soon, I think. I could imagine staying and staying when I first came here, but. . .’
‘None of us will forget this place, I’m sure,’ Lou said. ‘Nor this summer.’
Her voice sounded odd – too formal for the occasion, Kitty thought. Flora’s eyes rested on Lou with a look of enquiry, perhaps of expectation, and then she shot a glance at Kitty. They had been talking about her, Kitty realised, while she was inside.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What are you saying?’
There was a little pause, and then Lou said, ‘It’s Britten whose name people remember. Don’t forget that.’
Kitty stared. She could feel her heart beating, a little warm fluttering thing in her che
st trying to get out into the evening air. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That art is special,’ Lou said. ‘That you’re right to take your music seriously.’
‘But?’ said Kitty. ‘It sounds as though there’s a but.’
‘No more than for any of us,’ said Flora. ‘Life interrupts and compromises, but – well, that’s part of the point. But for you – if you’ve got something to say, something to give the world . . .’
Kitty was astonished. ‘I never thought you felt like that about music,’ she said. ‘About art. I never thought –’
Flora smiled. ‘I fell in love with Henry,’ she said. ‘I lived with him for nearly forty years.’
‘That might have made you hate music.’
Kitty felt painfully moved, not just by her mother’s affirmation but also by the sense that Flora saw her following the same path, facing the same struggle for – identity, Kitty thought. For answers. Part of her wanted badly to go on talking about her music, to tell them how it grew inside her, what it felt like, but she’d never done that before. Not even with Janet Davidson. Not even with Daniel, she thought suddenly, with a little wrenching pain of guilt and doubt which she smothered as best she could. But it was enough, almost, what had been said. Enough to acknowledge the existence of that spark of talent and vocation, to recognise its importance to her. There were other answers she needed, other questions she desperately wanted to ask, and this was the moment for them. Truth and dare and consequences. She took a deep breath.
‘If you had your time over again,’ she asked, ‘would you marry Henry?’
For a long time Flora said nothing – so long that Kitty began to be afraid she was angry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t . . .’
‘No,’ said Flora, ‘it’s an entirely reasonable thing to ask.’
Kitty followed Flora’s gaze to the lavender, thick with bees. Lou was watching her mother intently too, her hands toying with her empty wine glass.
The Things You Do for Love Page 38